Casting Call: The Secret Garden

By Emma Brown

In which we suggest who should star in the next big adaptation, remake, or historical film.

The Secret Garden is about a bratty but neglected 10-year-old rich girl named Mary Lennox. An only child, Mary lives in colonial India and is raised by her household servants. She is unwanted and unloved; her mother is a glamorous beauty "who cares only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people," and her father works for the British government and has little time for his daughter.

When both of Mary's parents die during an outbreak of cholera, Mary is taken to live with her widower uncle in the grim, grey Yorkshire moors. Gradually Mary become less unpleasant and befriends and helps heal her sickly cousin, Colin Craven.

Written by Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Little Princess,1905; Little Lord Fauntleroy, 1886), the last major film adaptation of The Secret Garden was in 1993. Now Guillermo Del Toro and Universal are teaming up to produce a new adaptation with Beasts of the Southern Wild writer Lucy Alibar writing the screenplay. Click through our slideshow to see which child stars we think should play Mary and her cousin.